Squid Game is a South Korean survival drama television series streaming on Netflix. Written and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, it stars Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo, Wi Ha-joon, Jung Ho-yeon, O Yeong-su, Heo Sung-tae, Anupam Tripathi, and Kim Joo-ryoung. The series, distributed by Netflix, was released worldwide on September 17, 2021.
The series revolves around a contest in which 456 players, all drawn from different walks of life but each deeply in debt, play a series of children’s games with deadly penalties if they lose for the chance to win a 45.6 billion prize. A nail-biting Korean drama proved to be a powerful story featuring hundreds of debt-ridden contestants vying to win 45.6 billion Korean won (£28.2 million). Hwang had conceived of the idea based on his own economic struggles early in life as well as the class disparity in South Korea.
What is special about Squid Game?
- Hwang Dong-hyuk wrote it in 2009 but he was not able to find a production company to fund the idea until Netflix took an interest in 2019 as part of their drive to expand their foreign programming offerings. Hwang wrote and directed all nine episodes himself. It took 11 years for Hwang to get the green signal for his idea. This is really motivational stuff!
- Squid Game received critical acclaim and attracted international attention. Within a week of its release, it became one of Netflix’s most-watched programs in several regional markets; at launch, it attracted more than 111 million viewers, surpassing Bridgerton as the network’s most-watched series to date.
- Total six games (Red Light, Green Light, Honeycomb, Marbles, Glass Stepping Stones and Squid Game) played in the series relied on skill and agility. Even in the Tug of War round, the team consisting of three young women and an old man beat their all-male opponents by adopting a clever strategy.
- Netflix estimates that its latest megahit, “Squid Game,” will create almost $900 million in value for the company, according to figures seen by Bloomberg, underscoring the windfall that one megahit can generate in the streaming era.
- Abu Dhabi fans of the popular South Korean Netflix show, ‘Squid Game’, were excited about getting the chance to experience a real-life version of the children’s game’ — but without the violence depicted in the series. The Korean Cultural Center (KCC) in the UAE organised their own version of the children’s games — seen in the series — for two teams, with a total of 15 participants for each session.
Hwang Dong-hyuk, the writer of the series mentioned in the media that the show was a story about modern capitalist society and the intention was to show the actions of someone that can do anything (to survive) in an extreme situation.
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